Tag: Llansamlet by-election

Odds And Sods (Nothing Personal) 18.06.2013

On By JacIn Cardiff3 Comments

Here’s a merry and eclectic miscellany of tit-bits and tales that have caught my attention over the past week or so. Or at least, it’s those I deemed worthy of comment.

NOT CRICKET, SURELY? (THOUGH PERHAPS STILL VERY ENGLISH)

A strange story from the Nicholas Insurance Pembrokeshire Cricket League (Division Six), not a source of news I’ve used before, nor one I ever thought I would use, but there you are. It seems that in a game last Saturday Crymych Seconds were batting against Lamphey Seconds when the Crymych batsmen walked off complaining they’d been abused by Lamphey players for speaking Welsh. An official complaint has been made to the League by the Crymych club.

Now obviously, Crymych is in north, or ‘Welsh’, Pembrokeshire, and Lamphey is south of the ‘Landsker’ (near Pembroke town); but even so, in this day and age who objects to people speaking Welsh to each other? And what would have happened if Lamphey had been playing a touring side from, say, Pakistan? Would they have subjected the Pakistani batsmen to the same treatment? If they had, I guarantee that it would have made more ripples than this story, now being quickly and quietly brushed under the carpet.

IEUAN WYN JONES STANDS DOWN . . .

. . . about twenty years too late. All Plaid Cymru needs now is a leader . . . and policies . . . and politicians someone other than a political anorak might recognise . . . and a sense of purpose . . . and a commitment to the Welsh people (rather than to ‘Wales’) . . . and a clear-out of the dead-wood . . . and an acceptance that Wales cannot save the planet by being covered in wind turbines . . . and an abandonment of (lower) sixth form socialism by joining the real world . . .

SWANSEA, MY SWANSEA

Clay OuterThe Llansamlet by-election campaign is up and running. Hitting the straps early is Robert – ‘call me “Bob”‘ – Clay, public school educated Trotskyite, former MP, political adventurer, friend of George ‘Indefatigability’ Galloway and now refugee. I was sent a copy of what I assume will be his main election leaflet, which I am pleased to share with you here. (Click to enlarge.) There are a number of observations worth making.

1/ Despite it being a large, and very wordy, example of its kind, Comrade Bob could find no room for a single word of Welsh other than the ‘Llafur’ in the party logo.

Clay Inside2/ He admits that he and his Austrian wife – elected to the council last year – are political migrants, having come to Wales after hearing Rhodri Morgan talk of “clear red water”. So there you are, if anyone was still in doubt, you now know who to blame for carpetbaggers, Third Sector grant-grabbers and other undesirables coming over the border.

3/ He identifies a number of specific problems within the ward that he will tackle: listed as Rhyd-y-Felin, Lon Enfys, Trewen Road, Parc yr Helig . . . none of which he knows, nor can pronounce, for he only moved to Llansamlet last August. Though one issue he does not mention is the one he’s built his local reputation on – the fight against another Traveller site in Llansamlet. Why is he so reticent?

Staying in Swansea, but moving on to other carpetbagger Labour councillors who’ve been in Swansea no longer than the Clays, no one seems to know whether Pearleen Sangha is still in California. Her Twitter account @PearleenSangha has fallen silent, no tweet since June 13. Has she been ordered by the party to stay schtum, in the same way her equally embarrassing colleague, John Boy Bayliss, @JohnCBayliss, was ordered by the party to close his Twitter account? The third member of the student-councillor trio has also been making a fool of himself, again.Theaker 1

Gin drinker Mitchell Theaker, @mitchelltheaker, got in the habit of signing off council cabinet e-mails as ‘Mitchy’. (Yes, he’s in the cabinet, representing children and young people. I suspect he identifies better with the former.) Anyway, the suspicion is that the party took a dim view of this lack of protocol, coming Theaker 2on top of other little, um, annoyances. Does “signing off” mean he doesn’t write them? What exactly does he do for his £36,000 a year?

And come to think of it, ‘Mitchy’ has also gone very quiet on Twitter. Nothing since this gem last Saturday. (Left.) Maybe he hasn’t sobered up yet! Or perhaps some avuncular figure among the bruvvers has taken young Theaker Theakeraside and, in an arm-around- the-shoulder sort of way, whispered to him, Shut up! you embarrassing little sod!

UPDATE JULY 1, 2013: It appears that young ‘Mitchy’ is unable or unwilling to take advice. His latest indiscretion seems to have been tweeting nonsense while supposedly attending a cabinet meeting. (Right. Click to enlarge.)

STARSTRUCK LABOUR

The Welsh Labour Government is splashing out £50m to “attract world class scientists and their teams to Wales“. The first of these ‘stars’ has now pitched up at Cardiff University; he is Prof. Yves Barde, from Switzerland. Now you know me, I have the utmost faith in the judgement of our Welsh Government, but I can’t help wondering . . .

1/ How many jobs for Welsh people will this massive expenditure create?

2/ Haven’t we been down the road of publicity-grabbing, ‘prestige projects’ before, and don’t they invariably fail?

3/ Isn’t this scheme just disguised extra funding for Cardiff university? For how many of these academic ‘stars’ will other universities see?

4/ No disrespect to the Prof, but the high point of his career seems to have been in 1989, “with the discovery of a gene which creates a protein – brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) – which is involved in number of brain processes including memory”. Mightn’t he, and others who’ll follow, be rather like southern hemisphere rugby players, coming here towards the end of their careers to boost their retirement pots?

LABOUR SEEING THE LIGHT, AT LAST?

I was struck by something said by Edwina Hart (and it’s not often I can say that!). Watch the BBC clip I’ve linked to and see if you get the same impression – that Labour now admits pouring money into the Third Sector was a waste of EU funding. She rejects in future having “hundreds and hundreds of partners” with “pet projects”, she tallks of more involvement from the private sector, and gives other signals that a corner may have been turned.

I’d like to think I’ve helped in my small way to bring about this change of direction. What I’m certain of is that the EU funders have made it crystal clear to Edwina Hart and others in Cardiff that they’ve screwed up twice, and they’d better get it right with the third and final dollop of Structural Funds.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Edwina and the rest have to explain to their grant-grabbing hangers-on that the days of wine and roses are over, forever. That the EU funding will in future be used for alleviating Welsh poverty, not for subsidising the unemployable of the loony left to capitalise on that poverty.

Llansamlet By-Election: Runners And Riders

On By JacIn Local Government23 Comments

Following the death of councillor Dennis James a by-election will be held for one of the seats in the Llansamlet ward of Swansea council. As dealt with here, Trotskyite Bob Clay, former Labour MP for Sunderland North, will be standing for Labour. While he may have been selected by the local branch there is still some confusion over whether the selection has been ratified, or welcomed, by the brothers and sisters higher up the greasy pole.

The other candidates announced before last Friday’s deadline were, for the Conservatives, James Peter Hatton, from Morriston. For the Liberal Democrats, Samuel Rees, from Brynmill. And for the Official National Front, Claire Thomas, of Townhill. So of the four candidates, only one – Bob Clay – actually lives in the ward, and he moved to Llansamlet less than a year ago! Of the others, one is at least from neighbouring Morriston, while the other two are from across town; the National Front candidate from the ‘troubled’ Townhill estate, the Lib Dem from an area given over to accommodation for students and other transients.

There is no Plaid Cymru candidate, because the party is all but dead in Swansea. (Sad, seeing as I can recall Llansamlet being Plaid’s first council seat in Swansea when it was won by my old friend John Ball back in the ’70s.) Surprisingly, the Independents were also unable to field a candidate due, it is suggested, to the favoured hopeful being away on holiday! So there you have it. Another example of non-local local politics in Swansea. Another example of how turned off the vast majority of local people are with their councils. Another example of how this disengagement makes it easier for political adventurers and extremists to grab the limelight, to expound their views, and perhaps even to get elected.

Putting this together with all the other local government problems – the Carmarthenshire dictatorship, the Caerphilly stitch-up, the incompetent authorities stripped of various responsibilities, local authorities increasingly run by senior officers – there are no arguments left for not reforming Welsh local government. And for not making a start tomorrow. Democracy is suffering under the present system.

Eight new authorities modelled on the pre-1996 counties would be ideal. (See above left, click to enlarge.) With no more than thirty or forty councillors each, representing ten to thirteen three-member wards in each authority; or possibly, smaller, single-member wards, for multi-member wards rarely deliver the promised ‘variety’, especially if the party popular locally puts up a full slate of candidates mercifully free of halitosis and capable of holding a short conversation without covering the listener in spittle.

P.S. In an earlier post I dealt with Swansea Labour’s ex-student councillors and their vacuous tweetings. Well, as I reported even more recently, John Boy Bayliss has now closed his Twitter account, @JohnCBayliss, on orders from above. His colleague, the California beach girl, Pearleen Sangha @PearleenSangha was, you may recall, home in March for a wedding. Well, here we are three months on, and whaddya know – she’s back in California! No doubt she’s there on important Labour Party business! Lucky, lucky Swansea!

UPDATE 12.06.2013: For using a picture of the Official National Front candidate for LSion Owenslansamlet in this post – since removed! – I was threatened with legal action by the South Wales National Front Organiser, Sion Owens. (See Comments to this post.) Mr Owens, of neighbouring Bonymaen, was a candidate himself not so long ago, in the council elections of 2012. Although he stood for the Official National Front last year (is there a Provisional National Front?) back in 2011 Mr Owens was a leading light in the BNP, and a candidate for the National Assembly. But he was cynically denied victory by a “politically motivated” arrest for burning a copy of the Koran.

Or at least, that’s how the BNP reported it. This is how ITV’s Wales Tonight covered it. You’ll note that the WT report mentions that Owens has also been in the ‘Welsh’ Defence League. So it looks like he’s moved between different organisations . . . but only if you believe that the BNP, NF (Official or otherwise), and the W/EDL are separate organisations. Sion Owens 2In case anyone thinks I’m taking this too seriously, just take a look at some of those we’re discussing – booze, bellies and Burberry. Who is going to vote for people like these, even in a suit and a (pre-knotted) tie? But be thankful for that. Because in many continental countries fascism has in recent decades produced charismatic leaders, it has gained sympathy from official quarters, including Christian churches. On this island all we have is an embittered section of the white underclass reacting blindly – but always reacting! – to forces it does not understand and, because it does not understand, it has no hope of directing or controlling.

And finally, remember, these are the people so proud to be “WELSH” that when they go watch the Swans they wave a flag that doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of Wales!